president obama even used reddit to reach more than 5 million voters in his re-election campaign. most of them young people. in his short live, he became a folk hero, pushing to make web content free. but with prosecutors pressing serious charges, schwartz hanged himself friday in his brooklyn apartment. his lawyer said he doesn't know what put him over the edge, but the notion of prison time had him deeply worried. >> i know this case was weighing heavily on his mind and was a significant source of stress for him. >> the freedom to connect, like freedom of speech or like the freedom to murder. >> the case stemming from schwartz's passionate believe for a wide open, free internet. it dates back to july 2011 when he was indicted on charges of stealing millions of academic articles and journals from a digital archive at m.i.t. the charges could have landed him in prison for up to 35 years along with a million dollar fine. >> i think they tried to turn a mole's hill into a mountain. in the kind of old time language. they really tried to make a federal case out of it. >> the archive n